My waning youth

Today is the very last day of my twenties. As of tomorrow, I’ll officially be in a new decade and no longer a kid. Thirties seems to be a decade of adult decision-making and taking actions like buying homes, getting married (and possibly divorced), and having children. So, I’m happy to say that before settling down for all that responsibility, I threw myself a party on Friday night and lived it up like a young ‘un while I could still legitimately call myself one.

The night took place in the Morningside Heights neighborhood, which I might soon be calling home. We started with a pre-drinks dinner that Josh and Todd kindly organized for me at The Heights. It was the perfect start to my night with four of my very closest NYC friends finally getting to know each other. I’ve been remiss at bringing together various individual friends, and it was great for Rena and Jen, who have heard so much about each other, to finally meet. And really, I think it’s safe to say that we all bonded over the Vancouver fries, a high-end take on one of my guilty pleasures: disco fries.

Rena headed home after dinner, but the rest of us made our way to La Negrita, the bar I chose for the night’s main festivities. I want to say that it was a perfect bar choice and that everyone settled in to a great night of drinking. In reality, though, it was bluegrass night. I swear to god—I think someone was playing a wash board. Compound the questionable music (I’m not saying bluegrass is bad; I’m just saying it’s not necessarily what you expect in a Manhattan bar), with the fact that the entire seating area was taken up by the band, and things were looking grim. What could be worse than listening to bad music while standing around uncomfortably in your going-out shoes? How about sweating like a pig while doing it? That’s right, the air conditioning was not working. My friends were troopers and took it all in stride, and as the night went on things got a bit better; the band ended and it cooled off as the bar thinned out. Still, I felt bad for choosing a location with so many things to be miserable about happening all at once.

I guess drinking heavily was one way to combat all these various challenges, and, in true youth fashion, I ended the night babysitting a drunk, vomiting friend. She’ll remain nameless, but those of you who know her can probably figure out who I’m talking about. And, in reality, I’m telling this story pretty freely, so if you really want to know which drunk you met on Friday night puked, just ask me. The lesson I learned, as I tried to air out my barf-fragranced apartment, was this: maybe turning thirty and growing up is a really good thing.